Alphabet Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 17th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, September 16th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 9th.

Alphabet has a dividend payout ratio of 9.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.64 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.3%.

Alphabet Stock Down 4.1 %

GOOG stock opened at $152.13 on Friday. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $121.46 and a fifty-two week high of $193.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.88 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.33, a PEG ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.05. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $172.50 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $165.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 2.08.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $84.22 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.44 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total transaction of $600,175.38. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 9 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,655.91. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.47, for a total value of $125,126.54. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 30,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,623,355.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total value of $600,175.38. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 9 shares in the company, valued at $1,655.91. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 200,532 shares of company stock valued at $34,055,874 over the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. TD Cowen boosted their price target on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Rosenblatt Securities downgraded shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price target for the company. in a report on Friday, June 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Alphabet from $205.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $182.86.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.